Recently in Education Category

Last April Mark Taylor, chairman of the religion department at Columbia, published a very provocative op-ed in the New York Times. His piece began like this:

GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).

His complaints? Narrow scholarship and underpaid graduate students. I won't argue with him about underpaid graduate students, but narrow scholarship? Give me a break.

I'm sure Professor Taylor is a respected scholar, but when I read a piece by a respected scholar,¹ I expect to see evidence for the major assertions -- even in a short op-ed piece. The evidence for "rapidly rising cost" and "sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans"? Even though I said I'm not going to argue the point, you just read all of the evidence for those assertions.

His evidence for narrow scholarship?

A couple of months ago one of my students, Kathryn Theiss, received word that she'd been awarded a fellowship from the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation.

The goal of the Switzer Environmental Fellowship Program is to support highly talented graduate students in New England and California whose studies are directed toward improving environmental quality and who demonstrate the potential for leadership in their field. (source)

The fellowships are highly competitive, and I am proud to be associated with Kathryn.¹ I'm also pleased to point out that President Hogan mentioned Kathryn's award on his blog a couple of days ago. If you want to read more about what Kathryn's up to, check out this article on the web page of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

Open source software is widely used -- Firefox, Thunderbird, Linux, OpenOffice, etc. My sense is that computer scientists are also very open about sharing their research, posting working drafts of their research papers and often providing source code for software under the terms of an open source license (GPL, BSD, Apache, etc.).

Apparently some computer science courses don't (or didn't) reward the same behavior.

Kyle Brady, a computer science major at San Jose State University, took a course earlier this year on data structures and algorithms. After each assignment was due, he posted his code in a publicly accessible Subversion repository. His professor contacted him after the end of the semester and threatened to fail him unless he removed the code. Kyle, who is obviously bright and committed to sharing knowledge, appealed to the department head who referred it to SJSU's Office of Student Conduct and Ethical Development. Their response? Here's how Kyle describes it:

Thanks to some perseverance and asking the right questions, SJSU Professors are now prohibited from barring students from posting their code solutions online, as well as penalizing their students for doing so.

A win for students, programmers, and copyfighters nationwide!

Congratulations, Kyle! I'd be delighted if students in my courses took the time to post solutions to the problems I assign in population genetics or to share their analyses of the problems I pose in conservation biology. I agree with you that sharing knowledge makes us all better off.

I just learned that the American Association for the Advancement of Science released this video, Evolution, education and the integrity of science, last spring. Take a look, and and pass it along.¹

A coalition of scientific societies and science teachers has conducted a national survey of likely U.S. voters to examine acceptance of evolution, attitudes toward science and scientists, and opportunities for promoting science education. Most of these folk who responded to the survey accepted that life evolved, many accepted that it evolved through natural processes, and more favored teaching evolution than creationism or intelligent design in science classes. The majority ranked "developing medicines" and "curing diseases" as the most important contributions of science to society. They also found that "promoting understanding of evolutionary science's contribution to medicine" was a convincing reason to teach evolution. The respondents viewed scientists, teachers, and medical professionals favorably, and most were interested in hearing from these groups about science, including evolution. These data suggest that the scientific community has an important role to play in encouraging public support for science education. (The FASEB Journal 22:1-4; 2008.)

CNet has a story this that describes how Hawaiian fourth graders cooperated with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists to collect data on humpback whates. I find the story encouraging for several reasons.

First, as an educator, students are using technology in a way that enhances their understanding and appreciation of the subject, not just being entertained. Morevover, their work isn't just part of a classroom project, it contributes to real scientific understanding.

Second, as an environmental scientist, I am delighted to see NOAA take advantage of the eyes and ears of fourth graders to help them collect the data we need. Many of the environmental problems we face require collection of enormous amounts of data, far more than professional scientists can do by themselves. We will increasingly depend on the expertise of dedicated, enthusiastic volunteers. The North American Breeding Bird Survey has done this for decades.

Finally, as a citizen, I am delighted to see young people participating in the collection and analysis of scientific data. Intelligent design creationists and others play on the widespread misunderstanding of science. They claim incompatibility between a scientific understanding of nature and religious faith where no conflict exists, and they massage (or suppress) data incompatible with political positions they favor. The more that citizens participate in science, the more fully they will understand it, the less likely they are to recognize that intelligent design is not science, and the more likely they are to demand that policy decisions are based on the best available science, not on political beliefs.